Category Archives: Horror

The Intersection of Noir and Horror: Mulholland Dr.

 

It has taken me a long time to realized that my endless fascination with David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. is in part because the dream-logic, nightmare-adjacent film is a fusion of two of my favorite film genres, Noir and Horror.

Mulholland Dr is a twisted terrifying tale of Hollywood, the emptiness of its illusions, the corrosive nature of obsessive dreaming, and the ultimate destruction of self and identity when we allow our dreams to become more vital than our reality.

Naomi Watts stars as Betty a fresh-faced aspiring actress recently come to Hollywood after winning a dancing contest and as Diane, a bitter broken woman whose dreams of stardom and love have been crushed by the heartless engine that is Los Angeles. Laura Harring plays Rita, a mysterious amnestic woman who has barely survived an attempt on her life that stumbles into Betty’s life and Camilla, as fellow actor that has all the success Diane never achieved and who has spurned Diane for other lovers leaving Diane bitter and murderous.

If that sounds confusing it is but that is often the deep style of a David Lynch film. Lynch doesn’t photograph reality but rather his films follow the logic of a dreamer on the cusp of waking and often it can be difficult or even impossible to separate what is real from what is dream and what is symbolic. Lynch rarely will have explanations within his narrative and outside of the piece never explains his work. It is your viewing and your emotional reaction and your interpretation that matters as to a film’s meaning. The film is incomplete without your participation in the dialog between artist and audience and Lynch will not corrupt the process by instructing you on your side of that conversation.

The most common description of the events of Mulholland Dr., and one I agree with, is that Betty is the escapist dream of failed Diane’s life, and that in the Club Silencio scene the dream crumbles revealing disastrous reality that collapses into hallucinatory psychosis.

This film is a niche taste and not for those expecting a direct, linear narrative where what you see on the screen reflects a fictionalized reality.

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Genre Blender

 

Genres are cool and useful guides to what a story is about. If I tell you a story is a horror you know that you should feel tense and unsettled as it unfolds and perhaps even after it is over. If it is a romance, you will hopefully feel joy and fulfillment by the end. When two genres are combined then something truly wonderful and magical is possible. Alien the movie that launched countless imitations artfully blended science-fiction with horror, it was by far not the first to do so but its unparalleled quality elevated it above the material that had come before. My own novel Vulcan’s Forge is a combination of colonial science-fiction and 40s styled film noir.

I have started in on a short story blending two genres that are wildly different and I hope I have the skill to pull it off even halfway decently, forward-looking science-fiction and tradition oriented folk horror.

Folk horror is a sub-genre of horror fiction that fixates on isolated usually rural setting and communities where the old ways are not only now forgotten but are usually embraced and practiced with zealotry. Where strangers confronted with unknown customs and filled with derision for these communities often meet untimely fates. A perfect example of this style of horror and one of my favorite films is 1973’s The Wicker Man.

I think science-fiction, with its emphasis on the new, the novel, and the future makes for an excellent contrast with folk horror with its dedication to tradition, custom, and the wisdom of the past. I hope I can do justice to moth forms.

 

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Things That Bug Me in the Alien Franchise

 

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Alien and Aliens, (Cubed can be dropped into the sea with the tesseract and Resurrection feels like a beta-edition of Firefly), I watched the first film during its

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

premier run in theaters and aside from the chest-buster in the moment before it sped away reminding me of Michigan J. Frog it excelled as a horror film, but there are elements in the pop culture surrounding the films that rub me the wrong way.

Xenomorph: I hate, hate, hate that people call the titular alien Xenomorph. First off Gorman used the term in Aliens, ‘a xenomorph may be involved’ clearly as a generic classification for any alien lifeform since aside from Ripley no one had ever seen or reported this beastie before. So, Bob, I hear you cry what should we call it? In the years before ‘xenomorph, hell before James Cameron’s Aliens was released me and my gaming group had a quite rational name for this thing, the Zeta Reticulan Parasite, since it was discovered at Zeta 2 Reticuli.

Flame Throwers: In the sequels that followed the titanic success of the first film there has been repeated reliance on using flame as a weapon to corral and herd the parasite. Good God people flame and flame throwers are useless against the creature. You can see how well they helped the first crew. Fire didn’t save one and there’s a very rational and simple reason for this. Ash was a fucking robot out to do the company’s bidding and when he suggested fire he was lying and not giving actually good advice. He already understood that it layers of silicon would help protect it against flame and fire.

A Killing Machine: From Cubed onward through Resurrection and the crossovers with the Predator franchise the parasite has been reduced to a slasher, killing to kill without motivation or purpose. In Alien and Aliens, it was following its lifecycle, not killing save when it was forced to or cornered, but breeding, reproducing. While Cameron deviated from O’Bannon’s original intent and planned lifecycle with the introduction of the Queen, O’Bannon had planned that captured organisms were cocooned and slowly transformed directly into the eggs that Kane has discovered, it still worked quite well as a highly unlikely but still credible cycle for the organism to follow. However, in the following movies the beast kills to kill and provided shock in place of horror.

Well, that enough ranting to kick off September.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Folk Horror Inspiration

 

Recently, I stumbled across a YouTube video from The Evolution of Horror exploring the cinematic subgenre of Folk Horror. The video had a very nice overview of the subgenre and presented one filmmaker’s, Adam Scovell, essential elements of folk horror the chain of Rural Setting — Isolated Groups — Skewed Morals or Beliefs — and Supernatural or Violent Happenings. Several of my favorite horror films are often classified as Folk Horror including the original and incredible The Wicker Man and I instantly saw the possibilities of Scovell’s analysis.

This prompted me to ponder could I craft a science-fiction story that followed the chain and landed successfully as a folk horror tale? I mean sure you could grab bag plot and character elements, follow the chain, and produce something that met the criteria but that’s nothing more than copying someone else’s work much like all those terrible slasher movies that followed in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween. I wanted something more than a copy, a paint-by-numbers execution I wanted something that at least spoke to me individually.

Pieces, fragments, began coalescing in my imagination and the unique constituent that would drive the mystery and horror arrived and I knew that had the skeleton framework of a new short story. Everything is not there yet, there are ineffable elements still cooking but for the first time in years I have a short story cooking and it is going to be science-fiction folk horror.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Streaming Review: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

 

This is a movie I haven’t seen since the late 70s when it appeared on HBO and was curious to revisit.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, henceforth referred to as Little Girl, stars a young Jodie Foster, the same year she appeared in Taxi Driver, as 13-year-old Rynn who lives with her curiously hard to meet Father, a commercially successful poet so you already know that we are in a land of fantastic events, in a small isolated, insular, and close New England village. Rynn’s clear brilliance, stubborn independence, and refusal to cowed by adults merely because they are adults provokes suspicion and attracts the attention of the village’s notorious but politically protected pedophile, Frank Hallet, played ably and creepily by Martin Sheen. With nosey neighbors and sexual predators pressing in Rynn’s secrets are soon exposed.

Little Girl is often genre classified as a horror film and horrific events do transpire but lacking any supernatural events and without an ever-escalating body count, not that isn’t one only compared to most horror movies this one’s quite modest, it may be more fitting to place the film within the thriller genre. Given the caliber of performers involved it is of no surprise that the acting to on-point and excellent with Foster displaying the sharp intellect often associated with her characters and Sheen exuding menace with bland conversational dialog. The film is hobbled by a score that at times feels incongruous with the movie’s tone sounding more jazz than suspenseful.

The movie is also disturbing, like Taxi Driver, for its open sexualization of its under-aged character. In addition to the threat of sexual assault from Hallet Rynn is proactively sexually active but viewers can rest assured the one from behind nude scene is of a 21-year-old body double.

With a brief 90-minute running time even with its slow pacing, Little Girl, requires only a small investment of time and is an interest example of contained horror before slashers ruled the coming decade.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is currently streaming on Shudder.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Odds and Ends

 

Here’s a potpourri of thoughts for this Wednesday morning.

1) I’m Bummed: I had been so looking forward to attending in person 2021’s Horrible Imaginings Film Festival but with Orange County’s COVID-19 positivity rate above 20%, the theater instituting a quite reasonable mask mandate, and my own somewhat compromised immune system due to arthritis medications it just doesn’t make sense to go in person. So just like last year I will be watching the films virtually.

2) The Face-Eating-Leopards that in the GOP Base is beyond control. It is both ironic and terrifying that the former guy himself, the Turd that stained our democracy and attempted to overthrow a fair and free election, was booed by his own crowd for suggesting that people get vaccinated. I am horrified that things are going to get worse before they get better.

3) I am now experimenting with greater post processing of the pictures I am taking with my DSLR. Here’s a color pushed and modified photo of a trip to the shore I took last year.

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Movie Review: The Night House

There are lots of different types of horror movies. Giant Kaiju monsters may stomp, fly, and smash their way through cities, aliens may menace earthbound and space travelers alike, demonic possession may turn a young girl in specter of degradation, the recently dead may stalk the land consuming the living, or masked and disfigured killer may stalk promiscuous teens, but my favorite form of a horror movie is the ghost story, like The Night House.

In the story Rebecca Hall’s character Beth struggles to accept the sudden and inexplicable suicide of her beloved and apparently devoted husband Owen. Attempting to power through her grief and refusing to recognize it Beth tries to carry own with her life, going to work as a public-school teacher, having drink with her co-workers, but alone in the lakeside house that she and Owen built, strange visitations and events intrude on her solitude. Investigating these strange occurrences leads Beth to discover that Owen had secrets and bring them to light reveals truths she is unwilling to confront.

The Night House is a slow-burn ambiguous ghost story of a horror film. This is not the type of horror movie that presents the audience with an elaborate special make-effects ‘kill’ every fifteen minutes but rather one that lives in the liminal spaces between what is clearly happening and what may be happening. Like Robert Wise’s The Haunting it is a film that can be interpreted as the work of malevolent spirits or the hallucinations of a troubled mind. For my money there is a single two shot sequence that lands the project on the it really happened interpretation, but your mileage may vary.

Rebecca Hall, who also acted as one of the final executive producers, carries the entire film. The story is told solely through her viewpoint with only a couple of sequences in the final moments breaking this convention to give as another characters view of the scene. I have been a fan of Hall’s performances since I first saw in in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige and here as the center of The Night House she doesn’t disappoint. The direction by David Bruckner is solid and executed with a firm hand on the ambiguity needed for this production. Elisha Christian’s cinematography is lush shifting comfortably between daylight scenes of peaceful tranquility to the night’s deep and dark shadows filled with unseen dread. Screenwriting team Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski have crafted a tale of grief and depression’s ability to drown us that utilizes horror as a method of exploration those themes. The Night House’s development of those themes of loss and what it does to us is reminiscent of 2014’s The Babadook without being derivative but rather so complimentary that the pair would make a most excellent double-feature.

The Night House is currently playing theatrically.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Parsing Empowerment from Exploitation

 

I just saw a tweet extolling the cinematic excellence of the film Revengeand while I am not going to respond directly to that tweet, I have no interest in dumping on someone for something they enjoyed, the movie was one I found lacking and I wanted to quickly compare to a similar film that handled the subject matter so much better, American Mary.

Both movie, Revenge (2017, France) and American Mary (2012, Canada) are centered on attractive young women who are sexually assaulted by older powerful men and the consequences of those attacks.

Revenge is an exploitative movie, fond of the ‘ass cam’ where the lens of the camera follows the woman close and low reducing her to a body part without the benefit of being from a clear point of view. The film utilizes nudity heavily and while it doesn’t film the assault in a particularly titillating manner nor does to capture the character’s full sense of horror and objectification. Following the assault, the movie descends into a series of set pieces of attacks and escape as she takes her revenge all while maintaining minimal or even absent entirely of clothing.

 

 

 

 

American Mary never falls into the ‘ass cam’ mode of cinematography. Its star is equally as attractive as the star of Revenge, young leading ladies are rarely unattractive, but the filmmakers never reduce her to simply her secondary sexual characteristics. The assault also avoids titillation along with nudity and captures the horror, loss of control, and the character’s objectification bur her assault. Following the attack, the character also seeks and gains a measure of revenge but unlike Revenge this is not presented as a sequence of violent murders but something more methodical and more extreme while maintaining a focus on the character’s mental state and her disintegration emotionally. We see the continuing price she pays from the assault and the ultimate hollowness and emptiness of her revenge. American Mary is a more complex and subtle film that explores the lingering harm of trauma and not simply the gratification of vengeance.

Both films are streaming on Shudder. Watch them and make up your own minds on the difference between exploitation and empowerment.

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A Pair of Micro Reviews

Messiah of Evil

This is a 1973 independent horror movie that managed to scrap up enough money for a day or two’s work from Elisha Cook Jr but not enough to a competent screenplay. Marianna Hill plays Arletty a young woman who comes to a seaside community in search of her artist father who has gone silent. She teams up with a womanizer and his harem of two who also are seeking her father. A sinister force seems to inhabit the town and gruesome murders result. Despite a decent set-up the screenplay is clumsy, the cinematography is bland, and the acting uninspired stretching the film’s 90-minute run time into tedium. Messiah of Evilis currently streaming on Shudder.

Masters of the Universe: Revelations

Kevin’s Smith’s revisioning of the second-rate animated series that couldn’t bother to produce actual names for character but referred to them solely by the story function is smarter and had more emotional depth than it deserves. I have watched just the premier episode but already there have been surprising twists and honest emotional reactions from characters discovering that their most loved and trusted companions have been lying to them for years. A special call out needs to be given to Sarah Michell Geller’s vocal work as Teela who is shaping up to the be the series most important viewpoint character.

This is currently streaming on Netflix

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Movies Are Back

 

At least for me anyway.

 

With the release of Black Widow my sweetie-wife and I returned to the theaters for movie but before that I had gone back to see Cruella. This weekend I will be heading out for a bit of what I expect to be mostly mindless fun with Snake Eyes. (While I was too old to be in the actual target demographic for the 80s G.I. Joecartoon series, I did enjoy the campy fun it produced.)

Looking ahead I can see a number of films that I want to see, and I want to see them in a proper theater. I’m not going to bother mentioning the MCU entries, just consider them a given.

The Green Knight. This looks to be trippy and bizarre and interesting.

The Suicide Squad. Right Wing internet trolls may have delayed Guardians of the Galaxy 3 by getting writer/director James Gunn temporarily sacked but, in the end, Disney restored him and as a bonus we’re getting his unique take on this DC property.

Free Guy. Odds are this is not going to live up to expectations, but it might, and Ryan Reynolds is fun and I’m looking forward to Taika Waititi as the bad guy and more Jodie Comer is always good.

Speaking of Jodie Comer brings us to The Last Duel a rich and luscious period piece from master filmmaker Ridley Scott. Scott, given a good script makes masterpieces, and given a bad one makes films that look great. I am going to see The Last Duel and hope the script is great.

Venom: Let There be Carnage. Should be fun.

Dune. Yes. I want to see this so much.

No Time to Die, the last outing for my favorite Bond even is all his entries haven’t exactly been good.

Last Night in Soho. Edger Wright doing a multi-period ghost story of a horror film. I’m sold.

A couple of film that I do not know the release dates for that are certainly on my radar.

Lamb an atmospheric moody piece about an Icelandic couple that finds an infant that may be a changeling.

The Tragedy of Macbeth from A24 that has so far always given us interesting films that are not budget busting spectacles but thoughtful artistic films.

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